Oyster River district considers later school start times

DURHAM — Oyster River Cooperative School District is moving close to a decision on later start times for the middle and high school.

The school board is considering a plan that would delay classes by about 40 minutes for middle and high schoolers, with a goal of giving students more time to sleep. The elementary school day would not change.

Superintendent James Morse and the school board will host a presentation on start times at 6 p.m. on Oct. 13 at Oyster River High School. The board is expected to make a decision before Thanksgiving.

"The research is pretty solid in terms of adolescent sleep but also in terms of adult sleep," Morse said. "We know sleep is important to mental and physical health and that's why we're heading in that direction."

"Schools are paying attention to start times and part of this is to at least create the opportunity for students to get more sleep," he continued, noting that there is no guarantee they actually will.

Oyster River has spent two years considering options for later start times that aim to balance students' need for sleep with busing schedules, after-school care, student jobs and extracurricular activities such as sports and music.

After vetting a handful of options, the board is focused on a plan considered the least disruptive for the district. As proposed, the middle and high school day would start at roughly 8:15 a.m. and end around 3 p.m. Currently, these students attend classes from 7:35 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

This plan also would require younger and older students to share the bus rather than having separate routes for elementary students and middle and high schoolers. The district would likely need two or three new buses to accommodate the unified bus run.

Those new vehicles would cost about $75,000, but also would push back the bus replacement schedule by a year.

Oyster River is not the only district exploring a later start to the school day. Dover's school board considered such a move last year before ultimately opting to maintain the status quo. Portsmouth is said to be reviewing start time proposals now.

Research highlighted by Oyster River officials shows children ages 5-10 need between 10 and 11 hours of sleep, while children 11-17 need between 8.5 and 9.25 hours. At least 8.5 hours a night is considered healthy for teens, although up to 70 percent get fewer than eight hours a night.

Changing the school day for nearly 1,200 middle and high school students is no easy task. At the high school level, 70 percent of students play sports, and travel to away games could cut into classroom time. There are also parents’ schedules and after school child care needs to contend with.

School Board member Allan Howland sees a lot of benefit to later start times but also challenges to such a change such as transportation and conflicts with athletics. However, he believes Oyster River has some advantages that mitigate those issues such as its own bus fleet and newly-installed lights on school playing fields.

“When you look at the research, it’s all pretty clear that there is a significant benefit to our kids by starting later,” said Howland, a former biology teacher.

The proposed change has generated plenty of interest among parents, many of whom have joined a discussion group on Facebook. At the most recent school board meeting, parent Dean Rubine urged the district to take action.

“My kids are suffering,” he said. “You guys have got to get to do this now.”

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